Episode 3

We’ve all been a bit down since Jood’s had her benefits stopped. Brad’s been telling me about all of these cases he’s found where ATOS have stopped other disabled people’s benefits. So they’ve stopped taking their medication in protest, had heart attacks, committed suicide.

I don’t think it’s going to come to that in Jood’s case, but you never know with young people. She’s definitely got a lot quieter lately. And she was so looking forward to taking part in her dance show. It’s like the sun has gone in and she’s lost in shadows. Brad is fuming about what ATOS, the DWP, and the government are doing to disabled people. ‘At least the Nazis just killed us off quickly,’ he says.

Anyway, we were all getting a bit down in the dumps until I spotted a piece in the Argus. To help celebrate 2012 Westsea council are putting on a free open-air showing of Chariots Of Fire down on the beach.

Take Harold Abrahams, for instance. He took part in the 100 and 200 metres in Paris. But because he was the son of a Jewish financier the powers that be in the film – the Masters of Ciaus College and Trinity College – don’t really think he’s the ticket.

He’s just not… Well, he’s just not amateur enough. Nor English enough.

But Abrahams shows that he can win and lose as well as any Englishman.

The other main part character in the film is Eric Liddell. He’s a Scot, an evangelical Christian who refuses to run on a Sunday while the Olympics are on.

Could you imagine anyone at the Olympics doing that now? They’ve probably all signed contracts forbidding them to do anything the organisers don’t want them to do.

Anyway, it was quite a good film, for all of its nostalgic, chocolate-box portrayal of Britain. A more innocent age in some ways. When the Olympics still had something noble about it. I’m not sure there’s much of that left. Brad reckons we like to kid ourselves about fair play, sticking up for the underdog, that it’s all about the taking part.

But I reckon Chariots Of Fire is about more than toffs and track and field, as the Yanks call it. The title comes from Blake’s Jerusalem.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land!

I wonder if the athletes in the Olympic Village feel like we’ve built Jerusalem for them? Brad says it must feel like a living in a gigantic advert. I reckon it must be more like a fortress. They’ve got the Army, those missiles on the flats, and the no-fly zone. It’s a wonder anyone will get in to see them. A far cry from Paris in 1924.

I wonder if they’ll ever make a movie about London 2012? I wonder what they’d call it?